Yesterday’s listless US market action has continued into this morning with Dow, S&P and NASDAQ futures all flat and still hovering near recent record highs. Overseas markets have been mixed with London and Sydney climbing 0.6%-0.7%, while Frankfurt and Tokyo were flat and Hong Kong fell 0.9%.
Stocks continue to digest recent economic news while waiting for corporate earnings season to start next week, which kicks off a week from today starting as usual with several big US banks. Meanwhile, confession season, a time when no preannouncement news can be seen as good news, remains extremely quiet.
Service PMI reports out from Europe this morning were mixed; generally hovering around the 50 expansion/contraction line. Eurozone Service PMI came in at 49.6, beating the 48.8 street estimate. UK service PMI of 56.3 fell short of the 56.8 street estimate. The Canadian Ivey PMI report is due at 10:00 am EDT with the street expecting a slight increase to 60.5 from 60.0 last month.
In the US today, investors may look to comments from US President Biden at 1:45 pm EDT and minutes from the last Fed meeting due at 2:00 pm EDT for insights into the future of fiscal and monetary stimulus and perhaps an update on the US vaccination program. North American trade numbers are also out today. Canada reported a trade surplus of $1.04 slightly better than the $1.0B the street had expected. The US reported a $71.1B trade deficit, slightly worse than the $70.5B deficit the street had expected.
In commodity action, WTI crude oil continues to bounce back, rising 0.8% this morning. Last night API announced a drawdown of 2.6 mmbbls in its weekly oil inventory report. US DOE oil inventories are due at 10:30 am EDT with the street expecting a 1.43 mmbbl drawdown. Metal prices, meanwhile, are still drifting downward with silver falling 1.1%, copper sliding 1.0% and gold down 0.5%.
